About me

My name is Kateřina Hodková. I live with my husband Tomas and our three children at Podbaba in Prague 6. Here we are homesteading on the part of Tomas's family allotment. In our little city farm we have chicken, indian runner ducks, sheep - herd of three, bees. To make the list of animals complete, I should not skip our pet friends - our lovely dog Fira, one budgie, two guinea-pigs, and thousands of worms (sure the last named neatly dwelling in a bin eagerly eating our kitchen scraps).

My husband and I, we both believe that care of one's soul and body mingles with the care of the environment we live in. That is one of the reasons why I supported Tomas's leaving the advertisment field in 2003 and starting a family run business HBABio dealing with prodution and wholesale of compostable bags and other equipment making kitchen waste and home garden composting easier.

I volunteer in Ekodomov NGO that I co-founded in 2004. The mission of Ekodomov NGO is the eduacation and motivation of people focusing on organic waste separation and home / community composting.

An idea to start an outdoor pre-school crossed my mind in December 2008. At that time outdoor pre-schools were practically unknown here in the Czech Republic. If you googled, you got thousands of tree nurseies but zero outdoor kindergartens. As part of Rudolf Steiner Pre-School Education Seminar I visited South Devon Steiner School in March 2009 and two community gardens in London. Three-week stay gave me the courage to carry on with what I had started recently: Šárynka outdoor kindergarten with a community garden. I put together a team and with significant help and support from Tomas and other enthusiasts Šárynka Outdoor Kindergarten launched in September 2009.

With Ekodomov members and volunteers we were considering a community composting of neighbourhood kitchen waste in Šárynka community garden. Resultant compost utilization as an income source would enable Ekodomov to decrease and eventually eliminate the dependence on grants and endowments needed for national educational campaign Kompostuj.cz. Due to both Ekodomov staff's and volunteers' enormous overloading there was not capacity left to develop this activity.

In November 2012 my maternity leave ended after 9 years. I was considering where to focus my energy. The main concern was to manage the role of a homesteading Mum and at the same time to be able to positively affect our family budget. Also I understood only after years that if one wants to afford volunteering with spreading beneficial ideas they must be financially secure. In my situation the choice was to make use of the allotment that needs substantial input and care anyway. Homedrown veggies and fruits cut down the family dependency on the external sources and monthly food budget. Crucial for abundant harvest is fertile soil.

And here comes Goodies For Rooties (Laskominky pro kořínky). It is a result of high quality soil needs, fusion of usage and care of allotment, family business HBABio, belief in meaningful activity on local level and at the same time making use of long-term-gained personal experience with education of public in the field of kitchen waste separation and composting.

In my spare time, that, truly, does not occure in the last years, I like playing the piano, guitar, recorder, singing in a vocal group Cantio, sewing, dance and swim. I root for improvements leading to sustainable ways of life. I am interested in permaculture and in intensive gardening methods enabling to harvest the most produce possible from a given space, especially usable for urban gardening (on balconies, patios, decks, and roofs) that are easily applicable to public. Among these methods belongs Square Foot Gardening.

I like eating tasty food and I believe the best food is the one that is grown by oneself. I am attracted by self-sufficientcy.

Goodies both for rooties and roots

Both my mother's and father's families used to have a farmstead.

My grandgrandfather Samuel Roštár was a respected farmer in Slovenská Ľupča at Slovakia. The entire village used to borrow a threshing machine from him. He had horses, cows, sheep and fields. Even though he was set up for life, he worked hard with his farm workers, not unusual in the past days. When the communists took the control over, he refused to join the collectivisation. He was named a "gulag" and put to prison for 15 years. The large farmstead was confiscated from him. It does not exist anymore, the communists demolished it and built a blocks of houses there. Further, one of the nine children, my grandfather Samo Roštár had a blueprint family run workroom. That was also closed by communists and the machines were destroyed. Apík, how everybody called him, could have had only stay and helplessly watch the workroom. He made his own living by driving a van. This sad family history is rarely mentioned by my Slovak mum to us, her four children.

My grandgrandmother Marie Heringová from father's side ran a family owned farm in Šemanovice at Kokořínsko. Even in his eighties my dad recalls riding a farm horse, rides on carriage full of grain and how his grandmother managed the whole farm with ease. The farm was sold after the Second World War for family reasons.

I was born and grew up in Prague 4 - Modřany in a house with garden. Today the half of Modřany garden is burried under a four lane asphalt road ...

Goodies for Rooties (Laskominky pro kořínky) is for me a new source of energy and at the same time a path to my lost rooties and roots.